The Oppression-Oriented New Left, Israel, and the End of Morality
Some progressives literally celebrate terrorism in the streets. Where did we go wrong?
I’ve been interacting with a few Hamas apologists online lately. They mean well but have developed a sophisticated justification for why it’s ok to rape, kill, torture, and burn Jews.
In short, they have become pro-Hamas, despite Hamas being the most objectively evil group seen in the world, perhaps ever. Nice, comfortable Americans, for the most part; it makes me wonder why?
It is all about oppression for them
And what does this say about America, and the developed or Western world more generally?
I have found that the Oppression-Oriented New Left (what some call “woke” people) are just that: fixated on oppression. In their minds, whoever has the upper hand is wrong, and whoever is struggling is right. If oppression is in the mix, it literally does not matter (much) if they just burned a few kids alive.
The end of morality
I’m sort of a fan of postmodernism, and even moral relativism in some cases. When we look from many perspectives and see them all, we cultivate empathy for others.
Yet, we also need laws and morality. We need to see that sometimes a person is fully human and rational, but also terribly wrong and even dangerous. Without some notion of right and wrong, things go very wrong — as they did in Israel on October 7th.
Relativism together with laws and standards
So we have to be empathetic, and we also need to establish laws and norms, and reject and punish those who go outside those boundaries. Hamas has so purely and completely violated every standard of decency and international law that they are in an evil class by themselves.
To be sure, Israel also violates international law. Not by attacking their enemies and declaring war on Hamas — bombing in a war is completely legal if military targets are pursued, and civilian deaths are also legal and completely normal in urban warfare. It would be illegal to target civilians, but it is not required to hold off on attacks when military targets are located in civilian areas.
But Israel does mistreat Palestinians in the West Bank. Unlike Gaza, the West Bank is not run by Hamas, and there is no need to harass people. It is not remotely comparable to Hamas’ terror attacks, but some actions are illegal.
So both groups have crimes and bad behavior to answer for. Which side should we be on?
Picking a side
As noted above, the New Left is on whichever side seems “oppressed.”
The New Left employs various “rhetorical fortresses” as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff describe in their recent book “The Coddling of the American Mind” to justify this, and avoid serious debate. These rhetorical fortresses are all attempts to avoid or mischaracterize an issue.
On Hamas, key rhetorical deflections are: Whataboutism, False Equivalence, and a fixation on Oppression.
Empathy is great. Excusing torture, rape and murder is not good. I do not know why I have to say this, but here we are.
Whataboutism
Oppression-oriented New Left people will say that Israel did various cruel things over the years, so it’s ok for Hamas to rape, kill and torture innocent civilians (including peace activists, I might add).
Specifically, the OO New Left will say that because Israel blockaded Gaza, or because current Israelis’ parents or grandparents drove out hostile Arabs in the 1948 war, it’s now ok for Hamas to perpetrate terror attacks.
Let’s be clear that no Israeli (or any Jewish group anywhere) ever commited mass murder and torture of their enemies. Not even against the Germans after WWII. The worst were two Jewish terror groups that ran amok prior to the founding of Israel 75 years ago — who were dismantled and shelled by Israel as soon as it was founded. Israel does not tolerate terrorism, despite it’s flaws and need for reform.
Straw manning
Arguing about a false situation (a straw man) is another favorite. As are language games. The Oppression-oriented New Left claims Israel is “settler-colonialist” and commits “genocide,” none of which is true. See my earlier article here:
To be clear, “genocide” means killing off an entire people. There are 2.2 million Gazans, 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and 1.6 million Palestinians who are full citizens of Israel proper. 10,000 deaths is unbelievably tragic, but a fraction of a percent of the population. Killing six million Jews was genocide. Killing over a million Armenians was genocide. Ranging through the streets of Rawanda hacking Hutus apart with machetes was genocide. Collateral damage when bombing a military target is not.
Also, thousands of deaths in intense urban warfare is not uncommon or a war crime. Falluja, Germany, ISIS all had similar results. Further, nobody knows how many of these deaths are Hamas fighters. Hamas recruits teens who are technically children, so even if Hamas claims of children killed is correct, we still don’t know much.
The New Left often throws up such nonsense to argue against practices (colonialism, genocide) that do not exist.
Moral Relativism
A particular Medium writer recently implied that if we can “understand why” Hamas killed those people, then terror is sort of ok. Or at least we should not condemn it fully. Honestly, I’m not sure what the heck this guy was on about, but this theme is strong in the Oppression-oriented New Left.
The OO New Left feel bad for any oppressed person, as they should. But then they also think that if they can “understand” the perspective of the killers, the killer’s view is just as valid as the view of a decent, moral person.
That is where they go very, very wrong.
Empathy is great. Excusing torture, rape and murder is not good. I do not know why I have to say this, but here we are.
Laws, and civilization itself, depend on making a distinction between what is good, what is tolerable, what is pretty bad, and what is completely intolerable. There are shades of grey, but there are also bright lines. The “understanding” argument attempts to erase all that, in favor of a political ideology where “power imbalances” are the only thing in the world that matter, and the more powerful are alwasy in the wrong.
So let me be clear. Targeting civilians, rape, torture, killing children, kidnapping innocents, and using your own people as human shields are all over the line. Illegal under international law, and intolerable even without a law to tell us this.
Oppression fixation to the point of being obtuse
A recent NYT article (paywall) illustrates the oppression fixation. It is about two people discussing the Israel/Hamas conflict.
The New Left person says:
“I have a very strong affiliation with marginalized people — brown, displaced, refugees, Black,” Ms. Oliver recalled saying at the beginning of the conversation. “We usually hear the perspective of those in power, and our school is about amplifying the voices of the disempowered. … Ms. Oliver then asked Ms. Minkin about “settler colonialism.”
later her acquaintance responds (correctly) that:
“You see me as white,” she told Ms. Oliver. “In that scenario, your lens of the oppressed and the oppressor leaves only one space for me. But I see myself as Jewish in that scenario. It’s much more complicated.”
The New Left person did not respond, but later told the reporter that:
“Inside my brain, I was thinking, Muslim people are by far discriminated against in a way that’s explicit,” she said. “I was also confused as to why she didn’t feel seen.”
The Oppression-oriented New Left (“woke left”, if you will) literally cannot understand why a Jewish person would be concerned when Hamas kills 1,400 innocent Jews, and then Americans celebrate their deaths in the streets. Her oppression fixation is not just a focus or opinion, it has completely blinded this woman.
All she can see is “white” and income levels. It’s not mean, stupid, or disingenuous. She literally cannot understand any other perspective, and sadly, can no longer distinguish right from wrong if there is a poor or brown-skinned element to a situation.
The problem in America
The shocking thing, perhaps, is that this Oppression-oriented New Leftist runs an elementary school, so the ideology will likely spread to the next generation.
The ideology springs out of critical theory (including critical race theory, but also others) and appears to have been funded in part by Qatar who have donated $4.7 billion to various U.S. universities over the years. Former Marxists who abandoned the class-based obsession of Marx in favor of an identity-based obsession are also involved in the rise of the ideology.
For whatever reason, strange academese terms such as “settler-colonialist” and “power differential” and “oppressor/oppressed binary” are now common terms used by regular schoolteachers, commentators, and others in the Oppression-oriented New Left.
This is particularly deeply entrenched in top newspapers, media generally, big tech, universities and the education establishment.
It took pro-Hamas demonstrations in the streets to bring the issue to the fore, but now we can see that this new ideology, taken to the extreme, obscures truth and morality itself.
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